Howard County officers cleared in fatal shooting of man with autism

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown declined to file charges Tuesday against three Howard County Police officers who shot and killed Alex LaMorie, an autistic man whose death sent shockwaves through the county’s disability community.

The 25-year-old was holding a kitchen knife while experiencing a mental health crisis in the early hours of March 1 when Pfc. Joseph Riebau, Officer Cody Bostic and Officer Joel Rodriguez fatally shot him outside of Columbia’s newly opened Patuxent Commons, a complex dedicated to supporting adults with autism and other disabilities.

Officers attempted lifesaving measures, but LaMorie was declared dead shortly afterward.

The attorney general’s Independent Investigations Division, which investigates all fatalities involving police, released video footage of the shooting in March and detailed their findings this week in a 10-page investigative report.

Investigators wrote that LaMorie called 911 to report that he was being harassed and blackmailed by an individual with whom he had interacted on an instant messaging application. Officers spoke to him by phone prior to their arrival and told dispatch that they planned to detain him to initiate a petition for emergency evaluation because he had made suicidal statements, the report states.

When police found LaMorie holding the knife in the parking lot, he disregarded multiple commands to drop it and walked toward the officers, who retreated backward to the apartment complex. An officer said, “We’re getting cornered” and they fired multiple rounds, the report states.

“The officers were not the initial aggressors and attempted to deescalate through verbal persuasion, warnings, and by creating distance between themselves and Mr. Lamorie as required by the HCPD policy,” investigators state in the report.

In a statement, LaMorie’s mother Jill Harrington called her son’s death avoidable.

The attorney general’s decision “sends the wrong message,” she said, and risks undermining the state’s progress toward a more humane and effective crisis response system.

The officers “came to the scene completely unprepared, without the proper equipment, the proper plan, and treating Alex’s life-threatening behavioral-medical crisis like a crime,” she said.

She believes the officers’ actions met the definition of gross negligence and warranted a charge of involuntary manslaughter.

The Howard County Police Department “respects and appreciates the thorough independent investigation conducted by the AG’s office,” spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn said in an email Tuesday afternoon.

LaMorie’s death sparked grief and anxiety among residents within the celebrated housing complex, which local leaders lauded as a pioneering solution to housing instability affecting low-income adults with disabilities as well as older adults and families with children.

Howard County Police have long had a partnership with the nonprofit crisis intervention center Grassroots, which operates a 24-hour mobile crisis team to respond to psychiatric emergencies, family crises and traumatic events. The three officers did not reach out to the Grassroots team on the night of the shooting. Body camera footage from the incident shows one officer asking another if he had a Taser. He replied that he did not.

In the weeks following LaMorie’s death, Howard County purchased 200 Tasers for police officers to use as alternative devices in dangerous and unpredictable circumstances.

The county also promoted a voluntary, confidential 911 flagging program for residents to notify police of mental, intellectual or physical health concerns before they arrive to a scene.

The Police Department is under new leadership this summer following Chief Gregory Der’s retirement on June 1. County Executive Calvin Ball appointed Maj. Terrence Benn to serve as interim chief.

In May, Benn pledged that the department’s priorities will include helping people with mental health issues and disabilities as well as young people.

“The highest return on public safety is prevention,” he said at the time.